The VON Coalition is a nice idea. I’ll start by saying that. The concept of the coalition is a good one — to push the agenda that the government shouldn’t attempt to apply traditional Telco regulations to VoIP companies, and should, whenever absolutely possible, shy away from applying any form of regulation toward VoIP — treating it as just another Internet service.

I agree with this concept wholly and completely, and not just because I run a VoIP company. Were I just the average consumer, I’d still agree with it. It doesn’t make sense to treat VoIP differently from, say, grabbing news off the ‘net, or posting in an online journal.  VoIP is just another method of communication using the Internet, and there shouldn’t be special rules applied to it just because it superficially resembles older technology.  If they made everyone get an Internet Driver’s License because someone likened the Internet to an Information Superhighway, you’d think they were mad.
People are adamantly up in arms whenever anyone mentions charging postage for e-mail, but still they try and apply old telephone regulations toward VoIP.

The VON Coalition should exist. It’s there to lobby on the Federal level to get something accomplished that only the giant Telcos have been able to accomplish before –  getting Congress to listen. That takes money, and lots of it.

I thought, well then, I’ll do my part. I’ll join the coalition and pay membership fees of some sort. Every dollar counts, right?

Not so. I clicked on the application to join, as there is nowhere on the site that says, “To donate to our cause, click here.”  I pan down to the yearly membership fees and oh my GOD!  ‘Small’ companies need only pay a yearly membership fee of $10,000USD. By the Coalition’s definition, a small company is one that makes annual sales of less than $500 million USD.  Medium companies, those making between $500 million and $1 billion USD have annual membership fees of $15,000, and large companies, those making $1 billion or more, have annual membership fees of $25,000.

What about the real small companies? Have they no say? Are we supposed to simply assume that the ideals of the companies making $500 million into the billions are to be the same as those of the smaller companies to whom $10,000 yearly dues might seem a trifle steep? It seems to me as though the VON Coalition, which purports to be protecting people against the lobbying power of the big Telcos are doing so without the representation of anyone but the companies that can likely take care of themselves in such a fight.  Nowhere is an ‘associate membership’ or, as I said, even a place to donate to the cause you may fully believe in. It seems unless you’re an industry giant, the VON Coalition doesn’t much care what you have to say.

I understand that lobbying at the Federal level is an incredibly expensive task, and takes quite a bit of money to accomplish, but why should this just be a Coalition about keeping the rich from losing their money, but not about fostering an open world of technology and communication on the Internet — about protecting the consumer and the businessmen alike?